Donald Knuth

Donald Ervin Knuth (1938 - ) American mathematician and computer programmer, best known for creating TeX and writing The Art of Computer Programming. He is also famous for giving reward checks that increase by powers (http://planetmath.org/Power) of 2 to those who find mistakes in his creations, and for giving his software version numbers that gradually converge to an important irrational constant such as e or π. Knuth is one of the few mathematicians to have been published in MAD magazine.

Born in Wisconsin, Knuth earned mathematics bachelor’s and master’s from Case Western Reserve University (Case Institute of Technology at the time) in 1960. In 1968 he started teaching at Stanford. He now has the title of Professor Emeritus of The Art of Computer Programming. Other honors Knuth has received include the Turing Award, the John von Neumann Medal, the Kyoto Prize, and a Chinese ateje given him by Frances Yao.